Thursday, August 28, 2014

Jewelry Peg Board Holder Out of Corner Computer Desk

About a year ago, I purchased a grey and black computer corner desk for Princess Two as I thought it would make a cute jewelry holder. It had grey metal angled corners with holes in them which I thought would be really cute to hold earrings and I figured I could add some peg board, a mirror, cork, white board or a chalk board in the center as well making it a fun for a girl to have in their room.


First off, I measured the distance between the sides and back as well as up and down to find out how big to cut the peg board pieces that I was going to screw on.

Once they were cut to the right size, I then spray painted them black to match the desk portions of the corner piece. 

When the peg board was dry, I screwed it to the back section of the desk using self drilling metal screws. I had to ask for help at the hardware store as I didn't want to get one that was too long or it would go through the back into the front metal and I didn't want that to happen so we measured the peg board and made it just long enough to go through the metal and the peg board.

At first, I was using a hand screwdriver which did work but it was hurting my wrist pushing down while trying to screw it in. 

I got my drill out and the job went much more quickly. Instead of purchasing individual screws, I just purchased a box as some dulled before getting through the metal as I did drill through the peg board in places if the holes weren't in the right spot.

Just make sure if you are going to do something like this that you go into the center of the metal and not on the edges or you may go through the side of the metal which won't hold and will not look as nice. 

The self drilling screws I used were 3/4 inch long and worked very well. Most of the time, you can see in the pictures, I just used an existing hole in the peg board and drilled into the metal but at other times, you can also see that I had to drill some holes in the peg board. Be careful to make sure you don't go to close to the edges or holes or it will make it too large a hole or crack the board making it not secure if you ever need to take it apart for any reason.


I used peg board everywhere but the center in the back. I had intended to put a mirror in the back center but Princess Three has a full length mirror that hangs on the back of her door so she didn't want another mirror. She did however want a cork board that she can pin pictures on and Princess Four uses large thumb tacks to hang up her rings so I shared that with Princess Three and she wanted the cork board. 


I showed you how she covered it in yesterdays post. She wanted the frame black to match the desk top so she painted it black before I attached it to the stand itself.

I had to cut two pieces for each side as you can't have a piece behind the silver holes or you won't be able to hang the earrings off it if you need to put backs on them. 

She had something else to hang the little earrings on which I will show you tomorrow but she LOVED that idea of the dangling earrings hanging on the silver area. If you don't want to use the silver area for earrings but just for a magnet board, you could just put one piece of peg board, cork or white board behind the entire section but she wanted it for hanging jewelry so that is how we worked it. It was easy to screw in each piece with four screws.

Make sure when you are cutting the peg board or whatever else you may want there, that you cut it long enough so that the edges are not showing. Cut it so they hide behind the lip of the metal center and long enough to touch the desk top.


You can see how it looks after screwing the peg board into the sides of the top section of the corner unit. We didn't have the two lower shelves to screw into the top section as we wanted to hang jewelry on them so you can see the holes in the center and bottom sides and I wanted to screw tea cup hooks into those holes and she could have jewelry off them but she is a minimalist so she doesn't have that much jewelry to hold on there. 


She has a few favorite pieces that she wears and is content with those. 

Because it was in pieces for transport, I didn't want to attempt putting the back center on until it was together in her college apartment. We hadn't eaten for hours and I couldn't get her to take a break as she wanted to get this piece together. 

She kept at it until it was mostly together and I needed to do my part putting the back center in. She put it together while I helped the other girls get their rooms together as they all had a hard time trying to move the dressers and beds. 

I thought that I took a picture of the back of the unit once I got the center pieces on. 

The center was a bit more difficult due to the metal being at an angle since the unit is a corner unit. 

Once the top shelf and top were on holding the side pieces together, I was able to put the back on. At first, I was trying to bend 90 angle anchors into fitting the angle of the back to hold the peg and cork boards in place. Then, I cut one off of a metal bracket you use to nail two pieces of large wood together but that wasn't working as quickly and well as I wanted. 

I then remembered my plumbers tape that I used to bring the two sides of my cracked bumper together. Click here for that post. I packed up the plumbers tape, the self drilling screws, the drill, and some wire cutters and took them with us so I would have the right tools to fix it once we were there. 


I cut off strips of the plumbers tape and screwed part of it into the metal on the side and then into the back of the cork board frame which would hold the cork board in and did the same with the top section of peg board. The plumbers tape worked really well. There were some sharp edges which I just bent back towards the peg board and told Princess Three to put duct / duck tape on them so she wouldn't scratch or cut herself while moving it etc.

You can see how it looks without anything on it but I do wish I had remembered to take a picture of the back. However, if you read the post for the past few days, you will know that I was exhausted and had a horrible headache by the time we got into the room and got this put together. You can see it is dark by the time we finished getting it together. 

Princess had fun putting the pegs on the board and putting the earrings in the silver slotted area. I thought it came out so cute. The top center is a bit glared in the picture but it is black like the rest of the peg board so she could have put jewelry all over and with a mirror in the center like Princess Two wanted, it would have been so cute as a vanity with a cute stool. 


She started putting her jewelry on it and her tissue box and some dvd's on it as she had some extra that weren't fitting on her shelves. She really enjoyed putting it together and it gave her plenty of space for all her jewelry and she really likes that fabric so we used it on top of her dresser as well. 

I'll show you one or two more tricks we used when finishing up her corner shelf tomorrow as this is long and I am tired. :-)

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